The last and final trip of the crazy summer 2008! To give you a little insight into our trip, we have a sister church in Gaborone, Botswana, in southern Africa, that we visited. The relationship with this church was forged about five years ago through a chance meeting in a parking lot between our former pastor, Pastor Roger, and the pastor of City Bible in Botswana, Pastor Chris. The purpose of our trip was to continue to invest in relationships that were forged earlier and also to create friendships with both church members and people in the city.
My trip to Botswana, Africa, was AMAZING! I loved every aspect of it. It was an amazing experience. Some of the highlights were: petting a cheetah, delivering the message at the Jesus film outreach in which 50 people got saved (and being heckled in Setswana—the local language), and watching a 12-year old pray with such a big heart and such big belief it’s inspiring just to watch. It as amazing to be in an entirely different culture yet see the same heart of God and be automatically part of a family. The people there were amazing servants.
In their culture, as a show of respect, they would carry anything you were carrying for you. This would mean your camera, your Bible & journal, all of your bags. It was crazy. I told them I was ok carrying my own stuff so many times!! I got the line “this is the way we do it here in our culture” so often that I learned a bit about allowing myself to be served. I wish I could say that there were 1-2 specific things that I learned over there that changed my life, but I really don’t think I could name them. I feel as if it were an amazing experience that increased my view of people, of culture, of faith. I feel I will someday go back as much for the people as for the amazing-ness of God’s creation. Our God is so big and so amazingly creative that I have this desire to continue to experience different places just to see the differences.
